LESSONS THAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM A GREAT BLOGGER CALLED MARIA POPOVA WHO RUNS BRAINPICKINGS

I have always been seeking for growth opportunities and I do this through reading interesting books and some interesting articles from different blogs online. 

I came across some great insights about life and how we should actually live our life on this great blog called Brainpickings.org which is being run by a woman called Maria Popova.  

Here are some of the timeless lessons that I have learnt from this woman of wisdom.

1. You should always give yourself the chance to change your mind uncomfortably

According to this great blogger, we live in a society where we actually do not have the comfort of developing our own opinions and thoughts that can actually help shape our lives.  

We are always expected to live according to the perception of society and also according to other people’s perceptions of life around them. She then said that we should be willing to uncomfortably change our minds and thoughts about different things. 

These things could actually be topics, ideologies and above all we could even change our entire lives.

2. You should do nothing for only prestige or money or status or approval

In our society today, there are very many people who are doing certain careers simply because they only have one goal and that is to make money or have a very high status. 

Maria Popova said that you should do nothing for prestige or money or status only. According to one writer who is called Paul Graham, Prestige is like a powerful magnet which is always making you to doubt even your beliefs around what you enjoy. 

It causes you to work on what you would like to like and not what you actually love to do.

 The feelings of prestige are fine although they will not make it very thrilling to wake up every morning or even gratifying to go to sleep at night. Instead these feelings will detract or distract you from the things that do offer you the deeper rewards.

3. You should be generous

From the writings of Maria Popova, we learn that we should be generous with our time and your resources. 

You should also be willing to give credit with your words since it is much easier to become a critic than a celebrator. 

There is always another human being on the other side of every exchange that is taking place who needs some attention. She said that every interaction provides a great opportunity to be understood and to understand and these are the greatest gifts that life has to offer to us.

4. You should learn to build some pockets of stillness in your life

Maria Popova said that there is a creative purpose to the process of day dreaming and meditation. 

Therefore, we should give ourselves the time to go for walks, ride our bikes to any place that we desire and surprisingly, she said that boredom can actually help us in our creative lives. 

The best ideas will most certainly come to us when we let the fragments of our experience float around our unconsciousness in order to form new combinations. 

When you do not give yourself some time to unconsciously process your thoughts and ideas, then the flow of the creative process will be broken.

5. You should ensure that you do take your sleep very seriously

According to Maria Popova, sleep is one of the most important things that every human being should actually take seriously and we should never let ourselves wear out because of the lack of sleep.

 Sleep is an essential for most creative people and will always dictate our waking moment and even social rhythms. You should be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. 

We worship our ability to get by with less sleep as a badge of honour that validates even our work ethic. This actually is a profound failure of self-respect and of the priorities. There is nothing more important than your health and your being sane.

6. Never allow people to try to tell you who you are

According to one writer called Maya Angelou, when people try to tell you who they are, believe them but more importantly when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. 

You are the only custodian of your own integrity and the perceptions of other people about you and the assumptions that they make about who you are reveals a lot about them and absolutely nothing about you.

7. Your presence is far more rewarding an art than productivity

Our culture measures our worthiness as human beings by our earnings, our efficiency, our ability to do different things. 

The productivity cult has its place but we should worship at it’s alter everyday because this will steal from us the joy and wonder that actually makes life worth living. 

According to Annie Dillard who is one famous writer, how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.

8. You should always expect anything worthwhile to take a long time

Our culture today is littered with a lot of immediacy and impatience. The myth of overnight success is actually just what it actually is a myth and this actually means that our present definition of success requires some serious fine tuning. 

The flower does not go from bud to blossom in one single burst and yet as a culture we are not interested in the process of blossoming.

 But it is during the blossoming that we actually build our character and destiny and this is actually the period when the real magic takes place.

9. You should always look out for things that magnify your spirit

One writer called Patti Smith was one time discussing William Blake and her creative influences and she was talking about some of the great writers and artists who magnified her spirit and it is actually a beautiful phrase and a very beautiful notion.

 You should endeavour to find out the people, ideas and books that actually magnify your spirit. 

Find them, and hold onto them and make sure you do visit them more often. You should use these things as tools that will help lift up and actually act as a vaccine for your progress in life.

10. You should not be afraid to be an idealist

As a creative human being we should learn to separate between our responsibility as creators and also the consumers of the constant dynamic interaction that we do always call culture. 

The fundamental question that we should be asking ourselves is what side of the fault line between catering and creation do we actually stand on?

 The commercialisation of art and creativity in the modern world has conditioned us to believe that the road to success should be paved with catering only for the existing demands- give the people Cat GIFs simply because Cat GIFs are what people want and it is what actually does sell. 

One of the last great idealists called E.B White has said that the role of the writer is actually to lift up people and not to lower them down. 

This is actually a role that each one of us is called to with a lot of urgency, whatever cog we may actually be in the society machinery. 

Supply will always create it’s own demand. It is only by consistently supplying can we hope to increase the demand for the substantial over the superficial which will actually occur in both our individual lives and our culture as a whole.

11. You should not only resist cynicism but ensure that we do fight it actively

Cynicism is a great enemy to the human productivity and growth that we should actively continue fighting out of our lives. 

You should keep fighting this beast actively yourself. 

This beast lays dormant in each of us and you should ensure that you do counter it in those people that you do love and engage with. You can do this by modelling its opposite. 

Cynicism is uncreative and does not encourage the power of critical thinking and it is spiritually corrosive in our life. Life just like the universe that surrounds us , tolerates no stasis or lack of growth and in the absence of growth, decay usurps the order. Like all forms of destruction.

 Cynicism is easier and lazier than construction. In our modern society today, it is more difficult and yet gratifying to live sincerity and acting from a place of large hearted, constructive, rational faith in the human spirit whereby we should be continually bending towards growth and betterment. 

This is the most important and valid antidote to cynicism and in today’s society and culture it takes an act of courage and resistance from a willing human being.